Auditory Learners
Auditory learners tend to benefit most from traditional teaching techniques. Many teachers use a lecture-style forum, presenting information by talking to their students. Regulating voice tone, inflection, and body language will help all students maintain interest and attention. Auditory learners succeed when directions are read aloud, speeches are required, or information is presented and requested verbally.
"I'm Going on a Picnic." Play games that involve auditory memory, such as "I'm Going on a Picnic." The first person says, "I'm going on a picnic, and I'm going to bring an ___" (e.g., apple, armadillo, albatross, etc.-anything that begins with "a.") The second person repeats what the first person says and adds something that begins with the letter "b" (e.g., "I'm going on a picnic, and I'm going to bring an apple and a banana.") The next person repeats what the second person has said, and adds something that begins with the letter "c." The game continues until no one can remember all of the previous items. The alphabet provides a memory clue. When the children can remember all 26 words, vary the game by removing the alphabetical order, using various categories of words or any nouns. This is a good game for a classroom, since it can be played with any number of players. It is also great for families to play in the car. Invent similar games.
"Silly Steps." Each day each member of the family gets to give one of the others a set of silly directions to follow. Begin with two-step directions, such as, "Go get a spoon from the kitchen and bring it back to me on your head." Gradually increase the number of directions, elaboration of the directions, and complexity, such as "Bring me the ruler in the back of the third drawer of my desk, come back into the kitchen, and turn around three times."
Eye contact. When giving your child or a student in your class directions, have him or her look at you and repeat what you just said. One parent practiced this consistently for a year and her son's auditory processing skills jumped from the disabled to the superior range.
Cumulative Verse Songs. Sing songs that involve repeating previous verses, such as "Old MacDonald Had a Farm," "The Twelve Days of Christmas," "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly," "The Green Grass Grows All Around," etc.
Going on a Lion Hunt (Bear Hunt). The leader chants each line, which is then repeated (R) by the group while walking in place and alternately slapping knees in cadence. There are movements that accompany each section. "Let's go on a lion hunt." (R). "OK!" (R) "Here we go!" (R) (Start walking action). "Oh look!" (R) "There's a gate." (R) "Can't go around it." (R) "Can't go under it." (R) "Have to go through it." (R) (Opening gate with creaking motion.) This sequence continues with each obstacle in their path. Next, the group encounters a bridge, a field, then some mud, then a river, then a cave. Then they see two eyes, a nose, and fur, and shout, "IT'S A LION!" They walk very fast, pretending they are running, and then retrace their steps as quickly as they can, making the sounds that accompany each part and end with "Whew! We made it!" There is a book available describing the activity as a bear hunt. New obstacles can be added as the children become proficient at it.
See and Say; Simon; Computer Sequencing Games. There are a number of toys available that require a child to repeat a series of sounds, lights, numbers, directions, etc. Some games of this nature are available on the computer.
Visual Learners
Visual Learners
Some students rely upon a visual learning style: "Show me and I'll understand." Visual learnersbenefit from diagrams, charts, pictures, films, and written directions. These students will value to-do lists, assignment logs, and written notes. Many of these techniques, however, also benefit kinesthetic learners.
Visual Stretches
Vivid Imagination
Picture thinkers have great—often wild—imaginations. They form strong, vibrant mental pictures that are often on the move. They make their own mind-movies as they read and listen. These mental movies can include voice-overs, close-ups, split screens, or panoramic shots. Anything they’ve ever seen on a screen they can imagine and use, including a zoom-in to enlarge something, an overlay of two or more images, transformation of one thing into another, rotation to see the other side of something, cartoon animation, or a graphic they can enter like a video game. They can organize information visually—laid out on an inner computer screen—and then file it away mentally to pull out later (handy for tests). Some picture thinkers may not know they have this mental computer capacity—so hampered are they by trying to listen and take notes at the same time (and then outline!). Picture Thinker’s spatial imaginations can run away with them in great leaps from one fantasy to another, but when under control, there is almost nothing they cannot bring into play in the arena of their mind’s eye.
Visualization
Visualization takes imagination a step further. Picture thinkers are wonderful visualizers, although some need to be taught this skill to jumpstart it. Visualization is the most versatile tool in the picture thinker tool kit. It can be applied in every subject area in school and in life in general. Tapping into what you have visualized provides immediate rich experience that can be examined whenever you want to . It is the basis of a kind of mental organization and storage of information, ideas, and their interconnections that is like a computer and imitates a computer’s worldwide web potential. There are two parts to visualization. There is the “cognitive scratch pad” that is like your computer screen where you input what you see. Then there is the long term storage of all the visuals that is like your computer memory. Visualization is so important that we devote an entire section of this book to the wonders of this tool. There we include sample classroom activities that build visualization skills, and we show how to use visualization in a wide variety of school situations. Here, we are just want to emphasize how important it is as a visual-spatial tool. Visualizing will work for all kinds of thinkers, but is home territory for picture thinkers. One point. Good visual memory is needed for successful visualization. There are some picture thinkers, usually impatient ones, who never look at anything long enough to make an image. They just play with speed-of-light perceptions. These picture thinkers may need help to look “just a few nano-seconds longer” to form a real memory. Once this trick is learned, they will quickly pick up their innate visualization skills and then will be off and running.
Seeing the Big Picture
Perhaps this goes back to hunter-gatherer days. Upon encountering something new—a new subject, a new experience, some unknown object—picture thinkers want to know right away what that thing is. They want to get to the heart of it, what it IS. Once that need is satisfied, they can sit back and learn about the details, all the bits and pieces that part of the picture. To understand anything, they need to get its big picture first, which is why they ask so many questions. They are trying to hook this new thing to something that they already know. This questioning can be a frustrating time for them. They can feel stupid, impatient, upset, tense, as they “circle around something new,” trying out various viewpoints. Because they are active learners, not wanting to have ready-made explanations handed to them, they are hard to teach. They insist in understanding it in their own way. It is hard for picture thinkers to experience significance if only parts are available to them without the essential whole. Remembering a detail and then attaching another detail doesn’t work for them. They must size the whole situation up and sort out what feels important to understand for themselves what something is about, and to make the right connections. Often they suddenly “see” the whole thing all at once, with everything in its place. Aha!
3-D Mastery
Although they may be called picture thinkers, visual-spatial learners are oriented to the dimension of space and see in 3D. Their world is far more complex than the flat worksheets or textbook pages in a classroom. Spatials often “see” ideas in a 3-dimensions like computer animation with depth. They look through both real and imagined space to see the whole of something and to check out the relationships and connections. This creates “inner territory” to explore. Picture thinkers can quickly scan all that their senses have taken in—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, sensing—and mentally connect the dots that spell out what is going on, or what the essence of something is We all do this all the time to some extent. It is called “perception.” But picture thinkers do it in spades. They take in 360 degrees of the space that surrounds them, making their input enormously richer and at the same time, more challenging to analyze. Having to pay attention a small set of details (like periods at the end of sentences) can feel like being pulled back from their normal range of awareness to a trivial pursuit. That tiny part better be important, or they discard it to return to scanning for significance. Sometimes seen as having poor organization skills, picture thinkers have their order. It centers around significance, an emotional response. Rather than outline as step-by-step learners do, where main ideas stand out like trees on the plain, spatials respond to feelings about importance. If something strikes them as worthwhile, it becomes part of their web of essentials, a mental map of things worth paying attention to. Instead of outlines—so comfortable to the stepwise —a picture thinker’s scheme of reality is more like a 3D star map. The various stars and constellations stand out in different degrees of brightness, all shining against the dark space surrounding them and all interconnected in some way. Those connections are based on feelings and sensed importance. At times, picture thinkers not only see but feel their way through concepts. They have kinesthetic input like those cyberspace reality games that evoke muscle response to what players “experience.” These spatials grope through space as if they could touch ideas and possibilities to find what is there. Einstein, who could visualize thought experiments, spoke of using “a kind of imagistic, kinesthetic shorthand” in his thinking process. (He was groping for words, typical of spatials when trying to explain themselves.) It seems he was trying to express the visual-spatial experience of thinking, seeing in imagination, and feeling muscular response to ideas. It is interesting that he recognized this as like “shorthand”—very minute, partial symbols, and tiny, nuanced muscle responses that could mark sensed relationships and also hold them in memory for future use. Spatials’ shorthand is different! Certainly not all picture thinkers are Einsteins, but this explorative mode of operation is true for many of them, especially the deep thinkers and long processors. (They are covering a lot of mental territory and this takes time.) Thinking in 3-D mode means that all sorts of connections can be made in any dimension. Quantum physics and string theory would make us aware of more than 3 dimensions Spatials may lead the way to extraordinary feats of inner space exploration, making its complexity more approachable to us all, but that is another story.
Seeing Relationships
When spatials get the big picture, they see the whole of something and how the parts fit together. The relationship of the parts to each other and to the whole comes naturally to them. That is the way things are. They often think about putting something together with something else, like a cook trying out a new recipe. They wonder what that new relationship might like—how each would affect the other. Rather than sort things into categories, their most natural mode of thinking is to consider various new combinations of parts and what the flavor of the new relationship would be. Their ability to invent and explore goes along with this curiosity about how something might affect something else. For them, everything is interconnected and, of course, related. They are very aware of personal relationships among people as well as how things relate to one another. While they can become very good at sorting into categories, this skill is secondary to that of recognizing the balance of relationships.
Pattern Recognition
Scanning and the search for significance combine to produce a talent for pattern recognition in picture thinkers. It is part of their awareness of connections. If a pattern (recurring connection) exists, they will see it. This means, for one thing, that they will learn math facts better when made aware of the interconnecting number patterns than through rote memorization. Playing games that use number patterns works far better for these emotionally attuned learners than drilling, since their memories don’t hold isolated, disconnected facts. Picture thinkers immediately recognize patterns that are pointed out to them but really excel in finding their own, often seeing connections among things that are overlooked by others. Once pointed out, the connections make sense to others who wonder why they never noticed that.
Kinesthetic Learners
Kinesthetic Learners
Most of the school population excels through kinesthetic means: touching, feeling, experiencing the material at hand. "Children enter kindergarten as kinesthetic and tactual learners, moving and touching everything as they learn. By second or third grade, some students have become visual learners. During the late elementary years some students, primarily females, become auditory learners. Yet, many adults, especially males, maintain kinesthetic and tactual strengths throughout their lives."(Teaching Secondary Students Through Their Individual Learning Styles, Rita Stafford and Kenneth J. Dunn; Allyn and Bacon, 1993)
Good Morning Gentlemen!
5th grade curriculum scope and sequence:
http://star.spsk12.net/Auditory learners tend to benefit most from traditional teaching techniques. Many teachers use a lecture-style forum, presenting information by talking to their students. Regulating voice tone, inflection, and body language will help all students maintain interest and attention. Auditory learners succeed when directions are read aloud, speeches are required, or information is presented and requested verbally.
Auditory Stretches
http://www.freeclassicaudiobooks.com/Visual Learners
Some students rely upon a visual learning style: "Show me and I'll understand." Visual learnersbenefit from diagrams, charts, pictures, films, and written directions. These students will value to-do lists, assignment logs, and written notes. Many of these techniques, however, also benefit kinesthetic learners.
Visual Stretches
Vivid Imagination
Picture thinkers have great—often wild—imaginations. They form strong, vibrant mental pictures that are often on the move. They make their own mind-movies as they read and listen. These mental movies can include voice-overs, close-ups, split screens, or panoramic shots. Anything they’ve ever seen on a screen they can imagine and use, including a zoom-in to enlarge something, an overlay of two or more images, transformation of one thing into another, rotation to see the other side of something, cartoon animation, or a graphic they can enter like a video game. They can organize information visually—laid out on an inner computer screen—and then file it away mentally to pull out later (handy for tests). Some picture thinkers may not know they have this mental computer capacity—so hampered are they by trying to listen and take notes at the same time (and then outline!). Picture Thinker’s spatial imaginations can run away with them in great leaps from one fantasy to another, but when under control, there is almost nothing they cannot bring into play in the arena of their mind’s eye.Visualization
Visualization takes imagination a step further. Picture thinkers are wonderful visualizers, although some need to be taught this skill to jumpstart it. Visualization is the most versatile tool in the picture thinker tool kit. It can be applied in every subject area in school and in life in general. Tapping into what you have visualized provides immediate rich experience that can be examined whenever you want to . It is the basis of a kind of mental organization and storage of information, ideas, and their interconnections that is like a computer and imitates a computer’s worldwide web potential.There are two parts to visualization. There is the “cognitive scratch pad” that is like your computer screen where you input what you see. Then there is the long term storage of all the visuals that is like your computer memory. Visualization is so important that we devote an entire section of this book to the wonders of this tool. There we include sample classroom activities that build visualization skills, and we show how to use visualization in a wide variety of school situations. Here, we are just want to emphasize how important it is as a visual-spatial tool. Visualizing will work for all kinds of thinkers, but is home territory for picture thinkers.
One point. Good visual memory is needed for successful visualization. There are some picture thinkers, usually impatient ones, who never look at anything long enough to make an image. They just play with speed-of-light perceptions. These picture thinkers may need help to look “just a few nano-seconds longer” to form a real memory. Once this trick is learned, they will quickly pick up their innate visualization skills and then will be off and running.
Seeing the Big Picture
Perhaps this goes back to hunter-gatherer days. Upon encountering something new—a new subject, a new experience, some unknown object—picture thinkers want to know right away what that thing is. They want to get to the heart of it, what it IS. Once that need is satisfied, they can sit back and learn about the details, all the bits and pieces that part of the picture. To understand anything, they need to get its big picture first, which is why they ask so many questions. They are trying to hook this new thing to something that they already know. This questioning can be a frustrating time for them. They can feel stupid, impatient, upset, tense, as they “circle around something new,” trying out various viewpoints. Because they are active learners, not wanting to have ready-made explanations handed to them, they are hard to teach. They insist in understanding it in their own way.It is hard for picture thinkers to experience significance if only parts are available to them without the essential whole. Remembering a detail and then attaching another detail doesn’t work for them. They must size the whole situation up and sort out what feels important to understand for themselves what something is about, and to make the right connections. Often they suddenly “see” the whole thing all at once, with everything in its place. Aha!
3-D Mastery
Although they may be called picture thinkers, visual-spatial learners are oriented to the dimension of space and see in 3D. Their world is far more complex than the flat worksheets or textbook pages in a classroom. Spatials often “see” ideas in a 3-dimensions like computer animation with depth. They look through both real and imagined space to see the whole of something and to check out the relationships and connections. This creates “inner territory” to explore. Picture thinkers can quickly scan all that their senses have taken in—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, sensing—and mentally connect the dots that spell out what is going on, or what the essence of something is We all do this all the time to some extent. It is called “perception.” But picture thinkers do it in spades. They take in 360 degrees of the space that surrounds them, making their input enormously richer and at the same time, more challenging to analyze. Having to pay attention a small set of details (like periods at the end of sentences) can feel like being pulled back from their normal range of awareness to a trivial pursuit. That tiny part better be important, or they discard it to return to scanning for significance.Sometimes seen as having poor organization skills, picture thinkers have their order. It centers around significance, an emotional response. Rather than outline as step-by-step learners do, where main ideas stand out like trees on the plain, spatials respond to feelings about importance. If something strikes them as worthwhile, it becomes part of their web of essentials, a mental map of things worth paying attention to. Instead of outlines—so comfortable to the stepwise —a picture thinker’s scheme of reality is more like a 3D star map. The various stars and constellations stand out in different degrees of brightness, all shining against the dark space surrounding them and all interconnected in some way. Those connections are based on feelings and sensed importance.
At times, picture thinkers not only see but feel their way through concepts. They have kinesthetic input like those cyberspace reality games that evoke muscle response to what players “experience.” These spatials grope through space as if they could touch ideas and possibilities to find what is there. Einstein, who could visualize thought experiments, spoke of using “a kind of imagistic, kinesthetic shorthand” in his thinking process. (He was groping for words, typical of spatials when trying to explain themselves.) It seems he was trying to express the visual-spatial experience of thinking, seeing in imagination, and feeling muscular response to ideas. It is interesting that he recognized this as like “shorthand”—very minute, partial symbols, and tiny, nuanced muscle responses that could mark sensed relationships and also hold them in memory for future use. Spatials’ shorthand is different!
Certainly not all picture thinkers are Einsteins, but this explorative mode of operation is true for many of them, especially the deep thinkers and long processors. (They are covering a lot of mental territory and this takes time.) Thinking in 3-D mode means that all sorts of connections can be made in any dimension. Quantum physics and string theory would make us aware of more than 3 dimensions Spatials may lead the way to extraordinary feats of inner space exploration, making its complexity more approachable to us all, but that is another story.
Seeing Relationships
When spatials get the big picture, they see the whole of something and how the parts fit together. The relationship of the parts to each other and to the whole comes naturally to them. That is the way things are. They often think about putting something together with something else, like a cook trying out a new recipe. They wonder what that new relationship might like—how each would affect the other. Rather than sort things into categories, their most natural mode of thinking is to consider various new combinations of parts and what the flavor of the new relationship would be. Their ability to invent and explore goes along with this curiosity about how something might affect something else. For them, everything is interconnected and, of course, related. They are very aware of personal relationships among people as well as how things relate to one another. While they can become very good at sorting into categories, this skill is secondary to that of recognizing the balance of relationships.Pattern Recognition
Scanning and the search for significance combine to produce a talent for pattern recognition in picture thinkers. It is part of their awareness of connections. If a pattern (recurring connection) exists, they will see it. This means, for one thing, that they will learn math facts better when made aware of the interconnecting number patterns than through rote memorization. Playing games that use number patterns works far better for these emotionally attuned learners than drilling, since their memories don’t hold isolated, disconnected facts. Picture thinkers immediately recognize patterns that are pointed out to them but really excel in finding their own, often seeing connections among things that are overlooked by others. Once pointed out, the connections make sense to others who wonder why they never noticed that.Kinesthetic Learners
Most of the school population excels through kinesthetic means: touching, feeling, experiencing the material at hand. "Children enter kindergarten as kinesthetic and tactual learners, moving and touching everything as they learn. By second or third grade, some students have become visual learners. During the late elementary years some students, primarily females, become auditory learners. Yet, many adults, especially males, maintain kinesthetic and tactual strengths throughout their lives."(Teaching Secondary Students Through Their Individual Learning Styles, Rita Stafford and Kenneth J. Dunn; Allyn and Bacon, 1993)
Kinesthetic Stretches
http://www.kids-activities-learning-games.com/kinesthetic-learners.html